


Puppy Adoption?

by LongIntervalsOfHorribleSanity



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Bucky and Natasha were soldiers, Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Recovering Alcholic, Stucky - Freeform, bucky and natasha aren't together all proper like though, lotsa swearing, or like red room romance, something like winter widow, stucky gets a puppy, whatever Bucky and Natasha's ship is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:34:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5631790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LongIntervalsOfHorribleSanity/pseuds/LongIntervalsOfHorribleSanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Steve are getting a puppy. Not any kind though, Bucky's favourite kind, a king Charles caviler Spaniel. Though from the moment Bucky rings the doorbell and His ex, Natasha, opens it, everything turns to custard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puppy Adoption?

**Author's Note:**

> I took the idea form the prompt “My new partner and I are adopting a pet and you’re the one who fosters them but you’re also my ex and my partner doesn’t know that” from the alwaysauprompts page

I stand in front of the door, something vaguely familiar about the décor around the inside that Steve and I can see through the window. There’s something familiar about the house as well. I can’t seem to place it though.

“It looks like a nice place.” Steve says taking my hand.

I move my hand-up to ring the doorbell.

“Oh, babe, I left my phone in the car, I’ll be right back. You can go in though, don’t wait up.” He says, as he turns running off down the street to the car.

I ring the doorbell.

“Hi, you must be the people looking to adopt today.” An all too familiar voice says.

I look up at their face, and there she is. I feel like I’m caught in the middle of a sick joke. My ex, to just any kind of ex though. Not just an ex-girlfriend. More. Ex-fiancé.

Let’s factor into the equation, that she thought I was straight as an arrow, hell so did I. Currently I’m here with my boyfriend. Also, he doesn’t know that I was ever engaged.

Never really been the right moment to tell him. If there ever is a right moment.

“Bucky?” She says, her voice a mixture of surprise and joy, ‘How are you?’

“I’m quite good actually, how about yourself?” I reply, trying not to show that I have a knot of anxiety forming in my stomach, and it’s only growing bigger.

She pulls me in for a hug, and I hug her back. I can’t help but notice on her hand a ring, not just any ring, an engagement ring. It looks slightly to familiar. I decide to ignore it, not pushing anything. Steve comes jogging up the steps, phone in hand.

“Hey, I’m Steve.” He says, sticking out his hand.

“Hi Steve, so I’m guessing you and Bucky here are adopting a puppy today. I’m Natasha.” She says, taking his hand. Steve looks her up and down for a minute before going breaking into a smile.

“Natasha, you mean Natasha Romanov? It’s me, Steve, Steve Rogers.” He replies. Oh shit, he knows her. Could my day get any worse?

“So I see you’ve already met Bucky.”  
“yeah, Bucky and I go back a little way as well.” She replies, giving me a secret smile. The knot is digging it’s way down into my gut. Oh god.

“So, do you two want to come in and find a puppy to adopt?” She asks, standing to the side.

Steve and I walk in. Before Steve can grab my hand, I shove them into my pockets.

“So, Tash, do you have anyone special?” Steve asks, in response to him noticing the ring on her finger. Oh shit. Oh shit. I just realised where it’s from. It’s my fucking ring. I give her that ring when I proposed. I feel beads of sweat forming on my forehead.

“Ahh, no actually, still wear it outta habit, you know how it turned out at the end of my last realationship,” She says, casting her eyes over to me. I look down avoiding her eyes.

She’s not over it either. It was about 8 months ago, and if I hadn’t met Steve, I wouldn’t be over it either, hell, we’d probably still be together.

“Oh yeah, that asshole that left.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“He sounds that bad.” So my boyfriend apparently hates me as well. Today just keeps getting better.

“So, where are those puppies?” I ask, trying to change the subject. I need to get out of here. We walk into the living room, and suddenly it clicks.

We looked at buying this house together. Oh my goodness. I’m about to die, and not in the good kinda way. The puppies come over to us. If this was any other situation, any other kind of dog, I’d tell Steve that we could go somewhere else, but she’s the only person that fosters King Charles Spaniels without it being at least a 2-and-a-half-hour drive to get there.

The puppies come bouncing up onto our legs, barking at us, licking us. Their so cute, I can’t even believe it.

“Do you guys want a cup of tea or something?” She asks

“Yeah. A cup of tea would be lovely.” Steve and I both reply in unison.

She goes out of the room and Steve turns to me, a smile on his face.

“I can’t believe you know her as well. She’s an old friend from back at school. Became mates when she moved over. How do you know her?” He asks

“Oh… uh, we met at military training, she was one of the best in our year, touch, we’d both go up against each other a lot. We both left at around the same time as well.” I reply

“Yeah, we lost touch for a few years while she was in the military, but she called me up a little while ago, not long after I met you actually, telling me she needed someone to talk to, she we met up, and she told me all about this guy who broke her heart. I guess she’s still not completely over it.” Steve says. Well that’s just fan-fucking-tastic.

“Yeah, we’ve lost touch a bit, both gone our separate ways. I did know the guy who she dated though. Even though he did break her heart, he’s not half-bad. Somethings are just too good to last, and he had lots of stuff he had to work through.” I say.

“I guess, still made a bit of a dick move though.”

I drop the topic, getting down and playing with some of the puppies when she comes back in, holding the cups of tea, and places them down on the table.

“So, you have any idea which one you want?” She asks.

“I’m not too sure, Bucky’s been the main one playing with the pups.”

“You have any idea?” She asks. I can feel a different tone in her voice when she talks to me. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I don’t think I would notice. It’s slightly wounded, hurt, like she’s trying to cover it, like she’s unphased by me sitting in her house, adopting a dog with somebody else.

I’m hurting her even more by being here. It only makes me feel shitter than I already do. The knot of anxiety has been growing the whole time we’ve been her, and I’m trying so hard to use this dog to calm down.

“Um, this one’s really sweet.” I say, looking down at the girl. Something about her reminders even more of lady from the lady and the tramp than all the other ones. That’s the reason we’re getting a King Charles in the first place, because that’s my favourite Disney movie of all time, hand down.

She gives me a smile.

“Do you think that’s the one you want?” She asks.

Steve gets off the couch, coming sitting next to me. I try to cover me shaking, move my hands to the other side of the dog so he can’t see them. He starts patting her.

“I’m easy, she is really sweet though. Very cute.” He replies. He gives me a concerned look. He can tell somethings off. Natasha gives me a similar one. I guess she can to. I swear I’m about to have an attack. I need to get out.

I start running through ways to leave the situation. I could say I’m feeling sick. That would require coming back though, and I really don’t want to do that. I could say I’m not sure there’s one here for us. The would require having to find another foster/breeder. I could say I’ve changed my mind about a dog altogether. They would know it’s a lie. I f I say maybe it’s too soon for Steve and us to get a pet, that would mean I would put distrust in our relationship, even though he’d understand, and require telling Natasha about us.

The only temporary fix is for me to go to the bathroom and calm down.

“Buck, is that okay?” Steve asks.

“What’s okay?”

“If we run through all the adoption papers and stuff. She’s been trained, and has all the appropriate vaccines, so we could get her today.”

“Um, yeah, you guys can do that, I’ve got to go to the bathroom.” I say, standing up.

They both nod, and I make my way down the hall to where the bathroom is.

I walk in, locking the door behind me, before taking a deep shaky breath. I pace the room, trying to calm myself down. Counting, trying to focus on where I am. I put my hands against the wall, looking down and try to focus on where I am. What I am doing. On the puppy where about to get. On the way Steve’s arms feel around me. I try to just focus on Steve, he can always calm me down. Before I know it, I feel tears streaming down my face.

After crying for a bit, I run the sink, splashing water over my face, collecting myself together before leaving the room. I start to walk when I hear Steve shout.

“What the fuck?”

Oh my god.

“Bucky is your ex-fiance, my boyfriend and you were engaged. He’s the asshole that left you.” He continues. I make a detour to the kitchen. I can still hear everything, but he can’t see me. He hates me.

“You two are together? He’s straight as an arrow.” She replies, equally shocked.

“He seems to like having my dick in him a bit too much to be completely straight though honey.” He replies. I feel myself start to shake again.

Steve continues.

“He didn’t think it was important to tell me he was engaged. He didn’t think I was important enough to tell.”

I just want to go in there and tell him how much he measn, how that was why I struggled so much to tell him. I don’t know how to say that though, without sounding like even more of an asshole.

“He broke my heart, and is now fucking one of my friends?” She says, more to the room.

“We literally just got a dog, I just signed all the paperwork. Then this goes and happens.”

He’s already got the dog. I don’t know how much more of this I can take listening to. I’m crying again. Everything blurry. I can feel myself shaking, violently, violently shaking. I leave the kitchen, leave the house and run. I run back to the car, climbing in, and try to calm myself. It’s not working, because I’m surronded by Steve. He normally cals me down, but knowing he hates me, is killing me. I need to get out.

I run even further down the street, turning corners until I’m in town, still crying. I walk into a bar. I haven’t been here since I met Steve. This used to be the only way I’d calm down, the alchol soothing my nerves. The bartenders still the same, the same owner as well. He hangs out down here during the day, making sure everything runs smoothly till the big rush on the weekend and at night.

“Hey” I say, taking a seat opposite Clint, the bartender.

“Hey Buck, haven’t seen you here in a while.” He says, and turs around, seeing how I look, his face falls.

“You okay? You look like you literally just went through hell and back.”

“Sure as hell feels like it.” I retort.

“Wanna talk about it?” He asks. Mostly, I’ve found people don’t live up to sterotypes, but Clint is one of the few exceptions, he is one of the most stereotypical bar tenders I know. Also one of the sweetest most caring people.

I shake my head.

“Want you ususal?” He asks. I nod in response, he picks up his mixer, and chucks one in front of me.

I sit there for hours, downing the until Clint properly pays attention to me.

“Shit Buck, you need to stop.”

“Just one more.” I slur. The nerves haven’t stopped yet. I need to keep the feel of the coll liquid burning my throat until I’ve physically stopped. I want to be black out, drunk, where nothing is there, and Steve is gone compelelty form my mine. He hates me still. He hates my guts. No way would he take me back after this.

The sound of his voice, the anger, the disappointment, the hurt. It’s killing me more than this drink ever will.

“Look, Bucky, I’m going to need you to pay for that, okay, I then I’m going to call you a taxi and get you home.”

I reach into my pockets, checking all over before realising, it’s all in the car. It’s dark out now, I don’t know where Steve is, let alone the car. The tears start all over again, and everything in me starts to break.

It’s the last straw. I can’t do it anymore.

“Shoot me please, Clint. I can’t take this anymore, just do it.” I slur.

“Bucky, I don’t know what’s got into you, but I’m not going to shoot you. If you forgot your card, that’s fine we can sort it out. But really, whatever it is, you can work through it. You’ve done it before. You were down here every day at one point, and Tony and I were worried about you, but you fixed yourself. You can do it again.” He says.

I just shake my head. I didn’t fix me, Steve did.

He waves Tony over.

“Hey, what is it Clint?” he turns to look at me, before his face falls.

“Oh, Bucky, what is it?”

I just shake my head. I do not want to talk about it.

“He got here in a state, and ended up forgetting his card.”

“I think after all he’s spent here; we can afford to cover him. It can be on the house. A gift.”

I feel myself start to cry even harder.

“We need to get him home.” Tony says.

“N-n-n-no. I d-don’t want to.” I reply, tears streaming down my face. I hear a voice, the soft silky voice of Steve’s. Oh god, how does he know about this place?

“Bucky! Buck!” He shouts. Tony walks over to him, and the exchange some words. I gues Steve is letting Tony know about us. I brace myself, waiting for a punch, a hit anything. All I feel is his arms wrap themselves around me. He’s literally hugging me, after all I did, he’s hugging me? This man makes no sense.

“Look, Buck. I understand, it’s okay, just let it out buddy, let it out.” He says, running his hand up and down my back, stroking me, soothing me. I bury my face into him more, breathing in his heavenly sent, staining his top with my tears.

He picks me up, thanking the boys, and buckling me into the car. We get home and he carries me up to our apartment.  
He strips me down, so I’m just in my underwear, he holds me as I vomit into the toilet bowl, after drinking, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to.  
He carries me to our bed, tucking me, giving me a gentle kiss.

“I love you Bucky Barnes. I really do.” He says, before climbing in next to me, holding me close. I fall asleep to the feel of his lips against my temple. It’s not over, it’s not fixed, but I haven’t lost him. He’s still there with me. He still cares.


End file.
